Aftershock
by calliope-love
Summary: In which, after the party, March Hare makes cute noises, Liam yells, and Break is crap at expressing himself. Liam-centric. Can be seen as either friendship or pairing.
1. Chapter 1

The Hare was hovering over him when he came to. That was how he didn't lose it right then and there — giggle himself mad at finding himself alive, at knowing he had to be at least a little safe or his Chain wouldn't be out at all, at the memory of the outright courage it had taken to allow himself to just _let go._ But the Hare chirruped gently at him and gave Liam one fuzzy ear to cling to for a moment.

He couldn't see. His glasses were lying broken somewhere, he remembered the crunch; and there really wasn't _time_ to lose his grip on sanity. So he reached out to give his Chain a bit of the affection it deserved, rolled over, located what was left of his glasses, and found his way outside.

Right in time to see the exact moment when Break's body betrayed him, set his lungs heaving up blood right in the middle of a lunge, and that was his own gun in Lily's hand — and then he'd yelled and the other had fallen and that was pretty much the end of that. Or it should have been, Liam felt, as he decided that he was going to lay down in the nice grass and the others could go be violent somewhere else.

Except that _Xerxes Break_ proceeded to walk up and make a face at him like Liam had spent his little not-nap personally stomping on his heart, only to pick it up, dust it off a bit, and try to hand it back to him. Even better, the idiot had gone on to announce in front of _everybody_ that he was glad of Liam's continued existence. This meant he'd probably had his brains rattled around a lot in the past hour or so and, knowing him, also lost a lot of blood; he had thus forgotten that Xerxes Break did not make announcments like that. No, Xerxes Break gave grudging subtle hints that he liked you, _maybe_, and near as Liam had ever been able to figure the biggest hint of all was whether or not he could be bothered to put in the effort to pester you out of your mind.

Actually saying it out loud like that, and directly _to_ the person in question? Never. Not even to Sharon. Certainly not in public. Which left Liam free to _worry about him_ for the rest of the night, and think very hard about the fact that he hadn't just _fooled_ Xerxes.

He'd hurt him.

And of course, Liam had thoughtlessly blown it off, too. Because not-dying had left him feeling rather cranky, and the last thing he'd had the energy for at the time was a wibbly Xerxes. It was a wonderful addition to the fit of guilt he started having pretty much as soon as Eques had a hold of him. In the back of his head, the Hare continued to purr contentedly.

oOo

Barma didn't question it when Liam asked to stay at Rainsworth while he recovered, and he cared enough about his servant to grant his permission immediately. He'd done more than enough. Let him rest among his friends.

For the first week, whenever Liam wasn't sleeping, someone was visiting him. Often it was Sharon, who seemed to be splitting her time between his bedside and Break's, but Oz and Gil and Alice and even Elliot dropped by as well. Liam managed to have an _entire_ conversation with Gilbert that wasn't about how irritating Break was on any given day. Granted, it was a conversation about Oz which ultimately evolved into a discourse on chocolate chip cookies as Gil explained the trick to getting them to the exact amount of crispy-but-still-chewy for Oz's tastes. But Liam was grateful for the effort, and he did rather like chocolate chip cookies.

He also _really_ didn't want to talk about how irritating Break was.

Sharon was fussy and Oz kept bringing him books, so Liam was happy to remain safely bedridden longer than was strictly necessary in his case, just for the sake of not making anyone worry more than they already were. To that end, he also didn't tell anyone about the dreams he'd begun having — dreams about black corridors ending in rooms full of chittering dolls, or playing chess with strange figures in black cloaks. They weren't nightmares, per se. He didn't wake screaming, or in any cold sweats. But he often woke clutching his sheets, stiff as a board, and _needing_ to know he wasn't alone.

The Hare was there at those times, as it always had been, quietly radiating love from its designated corner of his mind.

Xerxes Break, Liam noticed more and more frequently, was not there. He didn't come to see Liam at all.

oOo

Two weeks after the party Sharon finally admitted that she was worried about her brother figure — not because he was in an awful mood all the time or disobeying doctors' orders or disappearing on them or anything like that, but because he was _behaving_. He was quiet. He listened to what people had to say. He stayed in bed. He _hadn't sniped at Gilbert._ Sharon was getting to where she wanted nothing more, she said, than to reach out and try to rip Break's face off, to see if she could reveal the imposter that was so clearly hiding in there.

Liam made her feel better by joking that the amount of sugar Break ingested through his tea alone would be enough to kill any imposter in a matter of days, and that night, after a dream about all the colors in the doll room exploding away like blood from a bullethole, he made his way to Break's room. It was a walk he'd done in the dark countless times over the years, and his only accompaniment was the Hare chirping happily in his head.

It liked Break a lot. It had missed him, too.

His door was unlocked. Liam opened it just enough to slide inside; it creaked when it was opened too far, and if Xerxes was asleep, he didn't want to disturb him. He wasn't, as it happened. He was perched in his window seat, staring out at nothing.

"Xerxes," Liam said quietly. Break _jumped_, his eye wide, almost backing right into the window. Hastily, Liam shut the door behind him and said, "Xerk! It's okay, it's me. It's alright. It's just me."

Break was tense for a moment longer. Then he slid back down into his seat, one hand slipping to the wound in his side.

"You startled me," he murmured quietly.

Liam blinked. He'd just — admitted…? Maybe his brains hadn't been _rattled around_ so much as _bashed really hard._

"I'm sorry," he said out loud. "I didn't want to wake you if you were sleeping, but I — well, I haven't seen you, since…"

He trailed off when Break turned back to the window. Windows were always dangerous where Xerxes Break was concerned — he'd spent hours upon hours sitting in windows when he'd first arrived at Rainsworth, distant and angry and almost completely unapproachable. It was a habit he returned to when he was especially preoccupied or upset and everyone — _everyone_ — in the house knew to leave Break alone if he was sitting in a window. The last time Liam had seen this behavior, Sharon had just been poisoned by Vincent Nightray.

He hesitated. Then he offered, "Miss Sharon says you've been healing well."

Silence for a moment, and then Xerxes gave a small sigh and rose to his feet. Liam relaxed a little, but noticed with concern the way he clasped his own arms, as though he were cold. His shoulders were hunched, too. Liam went to him slowly, scuffing a little against the carpet so Break would know he was moving.

"I suppose there is something to be said for resting when you're told to," Break admitted quietly. He'd cast his eye in Liam's general direction, but he wasn't even trying to focus it.

"Imagine what sort of shape you'd be in if you'd started listening to us sooner," Liam said. The words could have been a lecture, but his tone was light, questioning; he was hoping he could tease Break a bit, get him to really respond. Instead the older man was silent for a while, his long fingers fiddling with the sleeve of his pajamas.

At last, he said, "Milady has said you're healing well, yourself."

"Yes," Liam replied. "The worst of it's over. I don't even — it doesn't hurt anymore, unless I move wrong." Xerxes still wasn't even pretending to look at him; nervously, he rambled on, "The rain we had the other day — that was the first time I've ever ached with the rain. When you first came to us it happened to you all the time, but I never really knew how it must have felt for you, and now I wonder if —"

"Why are you acting like everything is normal?" Break asked suddenly.

Liam stuttered a bit, then fell silent; the abnormal seriousness in the other man's tone completely threw off what little coherency he'd been managing to scrape together. The way Break was standing, there in the light of the window — the stiffness in his shoulders, the fingers clutching fabric, the way his jaw had set — told Liam that there was a right answer to the question, and he couldn't even begin to know what it was. He cleared his throat to buy himself some time, but ultimately, all he could think to say was, "Can't it be?"

Xerxes Break backhanded him across the face.

The hit was sudden enough, hard enough, that Liam reeled, his glasses almost flying off his nose. His hand went to his cheek, and a flicker of anger stirred somewhere behind his breastbone. One of them was breathing shakily, and he realized it wasn't him; looking to Xerxes, Liam saw that he was holding his hand close to his own chest, as though trying to keep himself from lashing out again. His shoulders had hunched, defensively — another gesture Liam remembered from the early days.

"Do you _really_ not understand this?" Break asked. His voice was low, and it wasn't quite trembling, but there was a waver to it Liam had never heard before. "Liam, _I thought you were dead_ — completely dead, really dead, _never coming back_ dead; the end, that's it, _forever._ I called to you and you didn't answer and I — I forgot where I was and I thought I was Kevin, and then they didn't die fast enough and I remembered I _wasn't_, and you were so _gone_ that I —"

"Xerxes." Agitated, Liam shoved his glasses back into place and reached out, but Break heard the rustle of his shirt and backed away, one hand raised as though to ward him off.

"No, no, you listen. Liam. You listen to me. You were _gone_, and I was so — I couldn't think past it and it wasn't just you, _everything_ was over, and then — then _out of nowhere_ I hear you and there you are and he told me, there with you, he told me if I just looked I could see you were dead but there you were, talking to me, and you expect me to just — just sweep all of that away like it was _nothing?_ Like I never felt it at all?"

"Do you honestly believe," Liam asked, glaring, "that I would _ever_ willingly put you through that?"

"Then why didn't you _tell me?"_ Break demanded. "I understand keeping it a secret from everyone else, but from _me_ —"

"Because _what if it hadn't worked,_ Xerxes?" Liam's voice rose; the Hare chittered, trying to calm him, and he ignored it. Break's sightless eye was turned directly to him, finally, and his expression was almost pleading, but Liam ignored that, too. "I wanted to tell you _so many times_, but then what if you expected me to come back and I didn't? I never _wanted_ to use the Hare; I did then because it was the only option I had left, and if she'd hit me again I could have died and stayed dead. Or I could have — I could've woken up only to find I'd been injured worse in the meantime and _known_ I was really dying then, I could've —"

Liam cut himself off, putting a fist to his mouth to waylay that next comment about how he could have finally woken up in a damned _coffin_. He hadn't been so honestly angry — not frustrated, not irritated, but truly and properly _angry_ — in a long, long time. Taking a few deep breaths, he gathered his thoughts and lowered his voice and said, "The March Hare can help to make me uninteresting, make me something not worth attacking; but it doesn't guarantee the attack won't come anyway. I'd have been happy never needing to use it. I'd have been happy if you'd never found out what it could do at all. But I always thought — as cruel as it would be for something like this to happen, to put you through that grief for nothing — it would be even crueler to give you some sort of hope that I might come back to you if I _couldn't._

"And I'm sorry, Xerxes, I am; I'm sorry the stupid Baskervilles turned out to be that difficult to kill, and I'm sorry we were both so hurt, and I'm sorry you had to find out the way you did —" A thought struck him. He ripped his glasses off. "Actually? No. No, I'm _not_ sorry about that last bit. Because if you _hadn't_ stumbled across us just then and thrown the tantrum _I know you threw_, she probably _would_ have killed me and then that would be that. You saved my life. So there."

Liam fell to cleaning his glasses. At the sound of the squeaking Break let out a noise that was somewhere in between a very wet laugh and a strangled choke.

"It wasn't me that stopped her," Break said. The waver was still there, and getting worse. "It was him. The other Baskerville, the one I killed. He got there first."

"Well, you had the sense to take the fight elsewhere so I wouldn't be caught in the crossfire, then," Liam told him stubbornly.

"No, that was him, too." He looked almost _sheepish_, of all things, in a deeply unstable sort of way. "He grabbed her and ran, to find a more open place. I only followed."

"Well," Liam said. Then he said nothing. _There went that argument._

"If anything you saved me. She'd have shot me point blank if you hadn't — hadn't distracted her."

"All the same." He set his glasses back on his nose. "It doesn't — I don't care who saved who. It's _us_. And we — you said before that you were glad I was alive. Believe me, I share the sentiment. Can't we just agree on that and go from there?"

"It's not so simple."

_You're the one making it hard,_ Liam thought, but he didn't say it aloud. The Hare wanted to know what Xerxes had to say, and so did he — and goodness knew Break was horrible at expressing himself when he got upset. But, as the silence grew long, the Hare gave him a mental nudge, and Liam asked, "What more is there?"

"You were never supposed to be at that party in the first place," Break snapped, his fingers clawing at his sleeves again; as he continued speaking, he slowed down, choosing his words more carefully than before. "You — you went behind my back when you volunteered to go, and then you didn't even _tell_ me you'd done it. I wouldn't have known until the night of the party itself if I hadn't checked! And then your Chain — Liam, what _else_ have you been hiding from me? I can't —"

"You're angry with me for doing what you've been doing for the past fifteen years?" Liam asked flatly.

It was a perfectly valid point, and quite the wrong thing to say; Break _snarled_, and barely reigned himself in from kicking whatever piece of furniture was closest — he'd destroyed a few chairs doing that, in the early days. Liam braced himself for another hit if Break came too close, but Xerxes backed away instead, clinging to one of his bedposts for support.

"Not you, never you," he growled. "You have _never_ been as stupid as I am. You are the _last_ person I should have to — to _suspect_ of —"

"I'm sorry I hurt you and you know I am!" Liam yelled. "I'm sorry you feel I've — betrayed your trust, but it's not — it's not _personal_, Xerxes, I kept it from _everyone_ —"

"But it's _you_ —"

"That is a stupid argument!" Liam shoved his glasses further up his face and strode towards his friend, violent tendencies or no. "You kept your secrets to save your own life, Xerxes Break, and you don't get to be angry with me for doing the same!"

"The _sneaking around_, Liam, it isn't just —" Break was actually shying away from him as he came closer. "I had no idea, I —"

"You weren't supposed to. Why are you being so stubborn about it?" Liam didn't know if Break was moving away for fear of hurting him or because he just didn't want him close, and the second bothered him so much that he reached out then and yanked Break into his arms, carefully, minding their wounds. "And my reasons were perfectly sensible; I'm not sorry about _that_ at all —"

"No. No, no, no, no." Break shoved against his chest, lightly, more to tell Liam he wanted away than to actually try to move him. "Liam. Let go. You can't hug this better, don't touch me —"

"I'm not trying to hug you _better_, I'm trying to — to hug you _less dumb_ or something, if such a thing is possible. I don't even know." Liam didn't let go. The March Hare was letting him know it was pleased with him; it had this notion that snuggles solved anything. He ignored it again, but not without a fond huff this time. He was thinking of the first thing Xerxes had said to him, the bit about what he'd felt when he'd thought Liam was dead. "You're _really_ angry with me because I scared you, aren't you? That's what it is."

Break stilled at that, and finally relented enough to reach up and sling an arm around Liam's shoulder — thankfully the one that hadn't been injured — and hold him close. He hid his face in Liam's neck, and Liam tilted his head to allow it, wrapping his arms more firmly around Xerxes. Because that was what it all came down to, really, wasn't it? They could fight all they pleased about Break being utterly unfair and Liam being sneaky and conniving and never resolve anything about it, but in the end, Break was his dearest friend and he had it on good authority that the other man felt the same.

He'd never wanted to put him through hell like that.

"I'm sorry," Liam murmured quietly. In a way he meant, _I'm here now, I'm here still, I'm here._ "I'm sorry I hurt you. I told you that. And I am. I'm sorry."

Break sighed against his neck, moved to pull away. Miserably, he grumbled, "You should leave before I _really_ embarass myself."

"I was there the day you sneezed yourself off the balcony railing at Lady Cheryl's tea party and went head first into the rosebushes underneath it," Liam reminded him, flat-toned and straightfaced. "I have serious doubts that you can top that."

Break stiffened in surprise for a moment. Then he spluttered against Liam's shirt, and the next breath he took came out as a sob.

The last of Liam's anger drained out of him in a _woosh_ and was replaced by a quick burst of panic. He knew better than anyone that Xerxes Break was entirely capable of sadness and grief, but in all their years together Liam had only seen him upset enough to weep openly one time, and he had backed away as quick as he could to give him his space, then. Now he was — well, he was responsible for it, wasn't he? And so he tightened his arms around him and held on for all he was worth, pushing his own nervousness aside. Break's other arm came up over the injured shoulder, but at Liam's hiss of pain he wormed it back down between them and then wrapped it around his back, clinging. His Chain was practically running in frantic circles in his head — times like this Liam was not even remotely surprised that _it_ had been the Chain he attracted.

As it happened, it was a very short meltdown. Some more sobs and only a few tears; it was over in under thirty seconds. Liam wondered vaguely if it was enough of a fit to really let out the _stress_ of two weeks worth of stewing over such a big thing, but when he backed up just enough to peer down at Break, the other man was making a face like he was stunned to have found himself crying at all.

He probably was. After all, Xerxes Break was decidely _not_ a weepy man. And as Liam watched, Break's expression shifted — very slowly — from surprised to outright pissy. Then he gave an indignant sniff. Liam laughed a little, unable to help it, and rested his head against Break's.

"I don't expect you to get over this quickly," Liam said gently, his own calm returning. "It is you, after all. But this whole thing is very hypocritical of you, you know. Secrets, sneaking, withholding — and how do you think I feel when you come home with blood all over your shirts or I look up and see someone pointing a gun at you?"

"I shall chain you to your _desk_," Break declared in response. "No. I shall wrap you in pillows, and _then_ chain you to your desk."

"You will not," Liam said shortly. "You don't have to. Lily knows, now, what I can do — or at least she knows I'm not necessarily dead when I look it. I don't think I'll be able to help with the Baskervilles in person anymore."

"Good. No more of this — this running around and getting hurt and making me worry."

"Again, _fifteen years._"

"What is the phrase? 'Do as I say, not as I do'?" Break glared up at him through his hair. "None of you were _ever_ supposed to follow in my footsteps. They are the last footsteps any of you should be following."

"This is not a discussion we're going to have right now," Liam told him. "I am far too tired. I just want to sit here and enjoy your company and start — start _not thinking_ about what happened."

"I — we can, we can do that." Break paused to wipe his face, by nuzzling roughly into Liam's uninjured shoulder. "I notice that we are not sitting, however."

He had a point. They were still latched onto one another quite firmly. Neither of them moved when the matter was pointed out, either.

"Yes, well," Liam said, feeling suddenly very awkward. "It was a figure of speech. We can stand here, too."

"I want to sit," Break announced. He shifted a bit, and Liam let him loose; he was gone in a flash, clambering onto his bed and grabbing a pillow to cling to instead. Liam moved to join him, moving more slowly.

"I'm also sorry about how rude I was, by the way," he said.

Break blinked. "Pardon?"

"After I fell. When you — when you said you'd thought I was dead. I didn't realize I was being so horrible at the time." Liam ran a hand through his short hair, wincing a bit at the memory. "I've felt awful about it ever since. I hope you'll forgive me for that, at least."

Break scoffed and looked away. Then he said grudgingly, "I'm sorry I smacked you," which meant he did. Liam reached out and calmly pried one of Break's hands off the pillow so he could hold it for a moment. Break resisted, but gave Liam's fingers a squeeze before he let go, and sat close enough that the fabric covering their shoulders just barely brushed.

Liam smiled a bit to himself. They'd be alright.


	2. Omake!

They sat together on the bed for a while after that, glimmers of the way things had been before showing through — Break nattering on about all sorts of frivolous things, and Liam helpfully deadpanning his responses. The Hare was burbling a happy little song to itself, pleased as punch. It was reassuring, comforting, all sorts of nice, until Xerxes suddenly announced, "I have empty-nest syndrome."

Liam stared at him at this pronouncment. At length, he said, "Pardon?"

"Gilbert kicked me in the spine," Break explained.

"…what does that have to do with —"

"You're all _grown up_," Break said, his head emerging from the pillow he had been burying it in. "I told Sharon about my eye, and she neither cried all over me nor beat me into the ground. _You_ can get into serious trouble and come out of it alive without me there. And Gilbert has actually _retained something I taught him."_

…_ah_. Yes, Break _had_ been the one to teach Gilbert — and Liam himself — how to kick like that, ages ago. Owing to his disdain for violence against others Liam had generally only ever used the move on doors, and he'd always sort of felt bad for the doors later. Gilbert, however — yes. He could see how Gilbert might have simply logged the information away to only pull out when necessary. He did have a tendency to always utilize the same methods over and over, and his guns were openly his ideal weapon.

Well. At least he had the presence of mind not to _shoot_ Break in the spine. Liam really did wonder some days.

"You ought to be proud of us, I think," Liam said presently. "In some way or other, all of that is your doing, after all."

"It'll be Oz next. He'll learn to pick out his own clothes and straighten his own bow ties."

"Ah, I see. You don't actually care about my responses, you just want someone to rant to. Carry on, then."

"And I think Elliot might finally stop idolizing me, too."

"Well, at least you won't have to beat him up anymore."

"I always sort of secretly enjoyed beating him up," Break admitted. "It always took a couple seconds longer each time."

There was silence for a little while then, Liam simply mulling things over and Break idly rolling around with his pillow for some reason. A thought occurred to him, after a while. It made him smirk. He spent some time debating whether it was worth the possible violence to actually say it.

Finally, Liam couldn't stand it anymore, and suggested calmly, "Perhaps soon they'll all start pairing off and making babies for you to play with. They'll call you Uncle Xerk and steal the candy from your pockets and climb on you, all the time."

Break stopped rolling. Then, very slowly, his eye emerged to glare in Liam's general direction. One flapping pajama sleeve came up and gestured toward the door.

"Get out of my bed," Break ordered flatly.

"No," said Liam smugly.

The resulting pillow fight only lasted a couple of hits, because they both hurt too much. But it got the point across.


End file.
